Griffey has good reasons for missing winter meetings

As a free agent looking for steady employment, Ken Griffey Jr. would be expected to be at the winter meetings, shopping himself to prospective employers.

He’s not, but he’s got an excuse – and it’s better than a note from his doctor.

Monday was Griffey’s annual charity golf tournament in Orlando, Fla, which raises money for the Griffey Family Foundation, which helps children’s hospitals in Orlando, Seattle and Cincinnati.

Tuesday and Wednesday had him in New York. He’s a nine-year member of the National Board of Directors of the Boys and Girls Clubs.

It’s a responsibility that Griffey takes seriously, although this year probably won’t be a memorable as his first meeting in December 2000.

”The first day Kenny was seated next to Colin Powell (at that time the retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. Armed Services),” Griffey’s agent, Brian Goldberg said Tuesday.

”It was a two-day meeting, and at the end of the day, they’d been talking and Powell told Junior it was nice to meet him, but that he wouldn’t be back for Day. 2. He told him he was going to be interviewed by the President-Elect George W. Bush to be Secretary of State. That was memorable for Junior.”

Griffey’s decade in Seattle was memorable in its own way, and he and Goldberg aren’t hiding the fact that Griffey would like to return to Seattle for 2009.

”I won’t deny Kenny has some interest in going back there,” Goldberg said. ”We’ve had a couple of conversations, and it’s still in the preliminary stages.”

Griffey is coming off minor arthroscopic left knee surgery and five weeks after the surgery is already able to run. But his viability as a Mariner has little to do with his health.

Instead, the Mariners need to decide in which direction they want to go under new general manager Jack Zduriencik.

Logic suggests that should Seattle sign him, Griffey could be a part-time left fielder/DH or a full-time DH.

”The Mariners have to figure out what they want to do at certain positions,” Goldberg said. ”Junior’s priorities in a personal sense is getting the opportunity to reestablish himself after last year.”

Griffey injured the knee in the Cincinnati clubhouse when he turned and hit a locker. He had the left knee drained three times, twice with the Reds and once again after being traded to the Chicago White Sox.

”It would have been six to eight weeks he would have had to miss if he had surgery during the season,” Goldberg said. ”So he played with it.

”There should be no reason he shouldn’t be able to return at least to his 2007 form.”

Griffey, who turned 39 three weeks ago, had 30 homers and 93 RBIs for the Reds in 2007 when he was able to play in 144 games. But 2007 and 2008 are the only two years in the past half dozen in which Griffey has been able to play as many as 140 games, and in 2008 he did part of that on one leg.

He comes into 2009 with 611 career home runs, fifth on baseball’s All-Time charts.